Dire Times Call for Dire Wolves
by InhumaneAfterlife
Summary: Set after the events of Darksiders. The Horsemen are reunited and on a mission to destroy the demonic rule in the realm of Eden so that humanity may return. A chance encounter introduces them to creatures that identify themselves as half man, half beast, bringing new challenges and confrontations. All the while, they face those that would see them dead. DeathxOC, WarxOC.


Ruin's hooves pounded over the cracking asphalt of the once-great city. His rider's destination was clear in his mind. The pillar of gray smoke tinged with orange and green and purple drifting into the sky marked the location of his kin. He urged his steed to move faster. The Phantom Horse obliged, easily doubling its speed. A glimmer of joy grew in War's heart. It had been so long since he had seen his brothers and sister. A hundred years of being locked away separated them. Only a moment later, the youngest Horseman arrived at the edge of a large impact crater; two similar ones marred the ground a few paces away from the far edge.

Death stood in the center of the depression. He tilted his head to the right until the bones in his neck shifted with an audible crack. He repeated this action to the other side. Powerful muscles twitched under his gray skin as he rolled his broad shoulders. Without warning, he began to scale the steep wall of the cavity at a tremendous pace, ending with a back flip landing on level ground. The brothers stood, one facing the crater, one facing away.

"I trust you are well?" Death turned his head just slightly to look at his brother from the corner of his eye.

A breeze began to blow, picking up the locks of black and white hair on its gentle waves.

War nodded.

Death looked towards Fury, who leaped onto unmarked ground.

"That is," he sighed, "Good."

War grinned. His eldest sibling was never really a conversationalist. Though, he had no right to judge.

"Well, I expected Eden to look a lot more, well, like Eden." Strife grunted, climbing over the lip of the chasm.

"A hundred years of demon rule tends to do that to a realm," Death's gravelly voice replied.

"Well, what do we do now, brother? You do have a plan, don't you?" Fury crossed her shapely arms.

Death tilted his head back and scanned the horizon. A forest of dead trees stood in front of them. Past that, a tower spiraled into the sky, looking as though someone had stabbed a great dagger into the earth. A flicker of darkness - barely visible even to the Horsemen's keen eyes- confirmed his suspicions. It was a demon nest.

"We go there," He pointed at the spire with a clawed finger.

"And what do you intend to do once we get there, hm?" Strife challenged.

"Gather information, slaughter every demon inside," Death's voice remained at a neutral tone.

A branch snapped.

In a heartbeat, the original Mercy and Redemption were pointed at the sound. Strife cocked the hammers back, prepared to shoot should the noise prove hostile. A massive, tawny colored wolf crept from behind a tree that couldn't possibly hide its body. Saber-sized fangs protruded from beneath its upper lip. The beast kept its ears pinned to the sides of its skull, trying to make itself as small as possible. It was almost crawling on its belly - putting at the height of a large bear- by the time it was within two yards of the Nephilim.

Strife began to squeeze both triggers before they were ripped from his grasp by a sandy red-brown blur. War and Fury drew their weapons. Death placed a hand on one of Harvester's twin handles. A ginger-colored wolf, even more enormous than the other, held the sister guns in its teeth, between a set of tusks and fangs. The wolf's shaggy mane rustled in the wind. The tawny colored wolf made a mad dash and cowered behind its alpha.

"Give. Them. Back." Strife growled.

The large wolf cocked its head, then began to race towards the forest. The small wolf followed, taking two steps for the other's every one.

Without warning, Pestilence reared out of the ground, covered in the same insectoid armor as his rider. Fury summoned her steed, Conquest. The mare's body was made entirely of flame- save for the black skeleton beneath with runes carved into every bone. She charged after her twin. Ruin and War followed. Death sighed; Despair pawed the ground restlessly. The pale rider swung himself onto the macabre mount and rode after his siblings. Something was off. Every time the wolves gained enough ground to outrun the Horsemen, the larger one would slow its pace, allowing the Riders to catch up.

Despair caught up to Ruin and matched his pace.

"Something is not right," Death called over the pounding of hooves.

"I know. Every time they gain a lead, they let us catch up. Do you think that they're leading us into an ambush?" War supplied.

"Perhaps, but I highly doubt it. There's no place for an ambush to hide."

War nodded, but did not respond.

* * *

The chase continued for half an hour, neither side gaining or losing significant ground. Despair trembled under Death. Even a Phantom Horse couldn't keep this pace up much longer. Relief was on the horizon. The wolves disappeared behind an ashy hillock. Pestilence reared as he reached the top. A vertical cliff face at least fifteen feet high overlooked a rocky gorge. The larger wolf waited at the bottom, sitting on its haunches and panting. Electric blue eyes stared up at the Horsemen expectantly.

"Well, we can't just jump down there," advised Fury, already aware of the thoughts turning in her twin's mind.

Not half a second later, Death did just that. Despair disappeared into the ground with nary a protest. The pale rider landed on the stone in front of the wolf silently, watching the beast with glowing red eyes. War followed, landing more heavily than his brother. Strife joined them, as did Fury, but not before reminding them that this was a horrible idea. A gust whistled past the high, rocky cliffs as Nephilim and beast stared one another down.

Cautiously, the wolf lowered itself to the ground and crept forward, just as the tawny one had done earlier. In an almost apologetic manner, the wolf set Mercy and Redemption at Strife's feet, shuffling back when the Horseman leaned down to grab the revolvers. Tentatively, the wolf padded in a circle around the Nephilim, moving slowly and trying to pose as little of a threat as possible. Upon reaching its starting place in front of the eldest, it sat down decisively. After a few seconds of silence, the wolf stood up and circled them again, less nervously this time, and sat down.

"I believe the beast wants us to wait here for something," War turned to his siblings.

"What, so it can grab some more demons to attack us? I don't think so," Strife clicked a bullet into Redemption's chamber.

"Peace, brother," Death addressed his hot-headed sibling, then the wolf, "We shall wait."

The wolf nodded, and trotted into a half-ruined wood and brick human building.

A moment later, an emaciated human woman limped out of the ruins.

_'It... it is not possible...' _The thought coursed through the Horsemen's minds simultaneously.

"Hello, who are you?" The human's voice was weak, tired, drained.

"We are the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse," Death began, "These are my brothers War and Strife," he indicated to his left and right, "And my sister, Fury. I am Death. Now tell us, human, who are _you_?"

"M' name's Hayden Ivers, and to call me human is only half-right," a mischievous grin spread across the woman's gaunt features.

Death's hand tightened around Harvester, as it always did when he was suspicious.

"Then what are you?" War asked.

"Well, humans had a lot of names for us," a bit of life seeped into the skin-cloaked skeleton, "Shifters, skinwalkers, werewolves, wolf-men, but the most accurate of the lot would have to be Man-wolves,"

"And what do you mean by that?" War interrupted.

"Remember that big red wolf and the little yellow one?" Hayden's energy dissipated. She pointed her thumb at herself, then nodded her head back towards the fallen building.

"Come on, I'll introduce you to the pack," she started to limp away.

Death shrugged in response to his siblings' questioning looks and followed the she-wolf. If he wasn't wearing his mask, they would see rare concern cross his features. The scraps of cloth that wrapped around the human-not human woman's body barely concealed the bones sticking out of her body and betraying her condition. He had seen worse in his incredibly long life, but the fragile human-wolf bothered him for some reason that he couldn't quite put his finger on. He was so lost in thought that he barely ducked his head in time to avoid the top of a rotting wooden doorway. Inside was a large room housing six wolves of varying but always massive size, including the golden-colored one from earlier.

"You've already met Sindy," she pointed weakly at the cowering blue-eyed wolf. War, standing in the door frame so as to not take up so much space, let one side of his lip curl up in a lazy smirk. The wolf ducked her head.

"And that's Jessamine and her son, Wayland," she indicated a pair of brown wolves with dark stripes running down their backs and stomachs, "Then that's Perla, Ray, and his son Reuben," Hayden was out of breath by the time she finished naming the gray she-wolf and the black furred father and son - the only distinction between the two was a white blaze on Reuben's snout.

"Why are they all wolves at the moment?" Strife tilted his head in curiosity.

"It's an easier form to maintain, it-" Hayden broke into a hacking cough. The fit subsided after a moment, and she continued, wheezing, "Despite the size difference, they don't require half as much food as-" here she coughed again, "as this form does, and it's stronger to boot." She coughed again, and her right knee gave out without warning. She collapsed, expecting her head to crack open against the filthy tile floor. Her fall was stopped abruptly, but not by tile.

Death held the woman in the crook of his arm, hand lightly resting on her upper arm. She weighed less than a feather to him. He watched her face contort as she held back a cough. Perhaps she had possessed an everyday beauty once, before the premature Armageddon. Her eyebrows were several shades lighter than her golden-red hair, emphasizing the skull-like eye sockets underneath them.

"Sorry about that, you can let me up now, I'm fine-"

"You are obviously not fine." Death's tone held a degree of finality. His eyes glanced away from the she-wolf when movement flickered in the corner of the room. The black and white wolf snarled silently at him; he ignored it and returned his attention to Hayden.

"Change into your wolf form, it would bode ill for us if the first near-human we found were to die," his tone held no warmth -merely cold logic- but still his siblings eyed him oddly.

"But then you wouldn't be able to understand me," she protested weakly.

"Ah, but you could still understand us, no?"

Hayden didn't have the energy left to argue. She tried to walk out of the building under her own power, but the pale rider was at her side in an instant, supporting her meager weight. No energy was left in her body to push away from him.

"Here, let me sit here," she coughed. Death let her go slowly; she knelt on the sandy ground.

Yet again, she coughed violently, doubling over and clawing at her throat. Death was about to step forward, but a gentle hand on his shoulder stopped him. He looked back to see Fury staring intensely at the human-wolf in front of them. He followed her gaze and was surprised to see what appeared to be muscle and bone shifting underneath the woman's skin. A low groan echoed through the gorge, accompanied by a sickening crack as her spine strained against her skin. Tears began to appear along the bellies of her muscles, ripping farther and farther apart to reveal wet ginger fur. The Horsemen could not tear their eyes away as the human in front of them was replaced by a wolf that was no less than nine feet tall at her shoulders.

They continued to watch with morbid fascination as the wolf devoured her previous skin.

* * *

**An: So, guys, what do you think? Are my man-wolves alright, or are they absolutely horrible and make zero sense? I was inspired by a transformation sequence in Hemlock grove, where the 'werewolf' eats his human skin. I thought it was cool.**

**Anyway, this story is rated M because sex, if you were wondering. Tell me if you want me to only write in the lemons involving the Horsemen or if you wouldn't mind if I put in a couple others between pack members. Love you~**


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